Water Scarcity and International Agricultural Trade

Agriculture’s reliance on irrigation and concerns over water scarcity raise the question of how global food output and trade could be affected if the issue of water shortfall needs to be resolved on the back of agriculture. To understand changes in food production and international agricultural trade as the responses to local water shortage, we construct a computable general equilibrium model in which irrigation water supply reliability is perturbed. The results suggest that regions under water stress cut back food production and turn into net food importers, although domestic water productivity improves. The regions’ welfare falls, primarily due to less endowment available for agriculture and decline in the terms of trade.